Rust

by Stan Galloway

A strip of bubbles underneath
the paint beneath the driver’s door
foretells a problem (that is, if I
don’t address it soon), from last year’s
winter weather. Oxidation
is the enemy of every
metal part, unnoticed, eating
at the very molecules,
bringing instability,
destroying what was made. I’ve got to
grind away the paint and what’s
beneath, down to the metal, smooth it,
treat it, paint it.
                         Now if only
fixing brokenness between us
were so easy.

Persepolis Is

by Stan Galloway

Persepolis is
distant.
Memories and ghosts
dancing through illusive gates
vie like lions for substance
outside storybooks and annals
outside chants in awkward tongues
outside tourist propaganda
surviving inside the body
pulsing in cells
that almost remember
Indo-European syllables
in the bongo of the blood.

A marble remnant of id
drums in capillary walls
inarticulate as bulls
breathing
beneath the anvil and stirrup
beneath aspiration
beneath recognition
homeless
in teak and cedar
in limestone dust
in every dreamed face.

Not so distant
in space or time
is Persian blood
empire of bone.